


Those Who Gave Their Island to Survive

by Bunn1cula



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Ghosts in uniform, Halloween Challenge, New Republic, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Spooky Endor stuff, Star Wars Gothic, Swearing, but no Ewoks so don't be scared, post-Empire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-10 17:49:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8926522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bunn1cula/pseuds/Bunn1cula
Summary: Years after the Battle of Endor, a small group of New Republic soldiers stationed on a graveyard moon discover that some ghost stories are true.





	

Sometimes, if you’re quiet enough, you can hear it. If you’re real still.

I’m not talking about the bare branches clicking in the wind, stripped bare by the chunks of debris from the old Death Star that still fall out of the sky to this day. Or the sorrowful sound the wind makes like a crying babe when it whistles through those spindly boughs.

I’m not talking either about the tiny buzzing firefolk that flash and chitter and whiz about in their nightly dances between the hanging moss and ivy.

What I’m talking about — if you find yourself in a silent moment, maybe while taking your rations on patrol, or having an against-regs smoke — are the dead.

Maybe you’ve heard of it before, the Haunted Forests of Endor. I don’t mean the song, though you might know that one, too, since those sad ballads got kind of popular after the war in some places.

I mean the yarns. You know, the ghost stories.

When I was first stationed here nine months ago, fresh out of NR army training and ticked about getting such a shit post, some of the guys who’d been here for awhile told me stuff meant to scare me, like, “Stay away from the old shield bunker site if you don’t want to piss in your boots,” and, “Don’t ever go into the old Ewok settlement at night.”

At first, I thought they were just giving me a hard time, being new and all. Then, I thought maybe they were warning me about the natives. There were crazy stories about the fuzzballs doing nasty things to Imperial scouts during the war, but I didn’t believe the half of it. And the stories about Imps cooking Ewoks and Ewoks cooking Imps were just too farfetched to be true.

But the thing is, I’ve still never actually seen one — an Ewok. And then I found out the settlement they were talking about, the one nearest the old Imp base, has been deserted for years.

Whatever happened here with the Ewoks seems to be capital-c Classified. When I asked the guys about it at chow one night, the room went dead silent until LT finally just said, “Nobody here knows.” Later, my buddy Crater told me that asking about that stuff is really bad luck. He didn’t get into what kind, exactly, and I didn’t ask. One thing’s for certain, though; the Ewoks that lived here aren’t around anymore.

The village is empty. The little hut aeries and wooden bridges and swinging vines are still there, but sit silent and overgrown with vegetation and everything is dangerously weak with rot. Cookware and bits of cloth and primitive tools are scattered all around, like whoever owned this stuff just…left. With nothing. And nobody’s seen any of them since.

I went up there once, into the tree village. On a stupid, drunken dare. And I’ll never go back. Not for all the spice on Kessel.

Arachne webs, big as tents. Stink of decay. I even found a femur bone next to an old stormtrooper helmet, the skull still inside it. Like someone had been playing that motherfucker like a drum. Totally sick.

But the worst part wasn’t anything I saw. I felt something up there I never want to feel again.

Cold. _Death_.  
  
So I stay away. The thing I can’t avoid, though, is the forest. ’Cause of patrols.

FNGs (that’s Fucking New Guys/Gals to you civs) always get stuck on night watch here. The main reason is that LT doesn’t have much patience for noobs. And the one guy that does, Cpl Gorin, actually prefers nights. Because he is weird as hell and LT can’t stand him, even more than the noobs.

The thing is, though, once you get past how bad he smells, and the nose picking, if you talk to him long enough, Snorin’ Gorin will tell you shit the others won’t. About the Ewoks. And the Imps. And believe it or not, the ghosts.

Yes, I said ghosts. No, I’m not superstitious. And no, I don’t chew luna-weed.

They’re real. At least, they are on this Forceforsaken moon. And Gorin doesn’t just tell you about them…he’ll show you.

Two weeks into my first tour, I was on patrol with Duster, Skitch and Gorin on a pretty typical night on Endor — chilly, damp, and still. The kind of night where you can hear every little rustle in the underbrush and in the trees and it makes you hold your blaster rifle a little bit tighter just in case it’s a condor dragon or a mantigrue, or worse.

So three klicks into our route, Skitch asks Gorin if he believes in the Night Spirit. _No,_ says Gorin, _there’s no such thing. The Ewoks misinterpreted natural phenomena for physical manifestations of evil._

“The fuck you talking about, Gorin?” mumbled Duster through a cigarette. Gorin didn’t care about regs too much and let us smoke on patrol.

_The Ewoks saw a meteor and thought it heralded evil. They decided certain animals served this evil deity, so they made totems for protection from them. They thought—hey, watch this big root here, guys, don’t trip—they thought swamp gases were malicious spirits. They worshiped a tree. All because of a hunk of rock from space. None of that is real._

“But I heard you believe in ghosts, Gore,” said Skitch.

_Oh, I do. But not the Night Spirit. Ghosts are real, though._

Duster flicked his smoke into a dark pool of muck and its burning cherry went out with a quick hiss. “You are so full of shit, man. You’re kriffing nuts.”

_Maybe I am. But ghosts exist here. I can show you._

“Yeah? Do it.” Duster spit on the ground.

_Okay. But you gotta be respectful, understand? Don’t go provoking them._

“Why?” I asked, holding my rifle a little closer to my chest. “Can they hurt us?”

_Some of ‘em can. If they want._

“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” said Skitch, licking his lips and shifting his eyes side-to-side.

“Shut up, Skitch. You brought it up. Let’s see what Gorin has to show us,” said Duster.

Gorin shrugged and changed direction to NNE. His pace was much more deliberate than before and I had to almost trot to keep up. I was in good shape, being fresh out of training, but after thirty minutes, I started to flag. “How much further?” I puffed, wincing when I kicked a sharp rock that I knew bruised my toe even through the boot.

_Not far._

Ten minutes later, we reached a small clearing. Not a natural one. In between a cluster of splintered, rotten trees laid a big chunk of black metal, so twisted up that it was unrecognizable for what it once had been.

Then I noticed it parts of the structure curved. Like it had once been spherical. There was a porthole. “Is that…an escape pod?” I whispered, my breath catching halfway through the question. Something was giving me a really bad feeling, like up in the tree village.

 _Uh huh. Let me check inside. Hang on._ Gorin went over to the pod, ducked his head into an opening, and after a few seconds, lumbered back over to us. He nodded.

I stepped forward first, and the the other two followed me. As I got closer to the big hole in the pod’s hull, I felt the hairs on my arms raise. The temperature plummeted. A chill cut through me, and a slug of sweat slipped down my spine.

I’ll admit it—I was scared. Something told me to run. But I wanted to see. I had to see.

Duster and Skitch shouldered me aside and pushed into the entrance together. I was just about to punch Duster in his left kidney for shoving me when he wheeled about and wordlessly hightailed it back to the edge of the clearing where Gorin waited.

Skitch stood his ground, but so motionless I couldn’t be sure he was even breathing. When I got closer, I saw his freckled face was the color of bleached granite. I heard Duster a few meters back, puking.

So I looked inside. And sure enough, there it was in the middle of the pod, standing over a pile of scattered bones and ripped cloth. Its form was nearly transparent and shimmered in pale blue. A spirit – a man, in an Imp officer’s uniform, an expression of fearful agony on its face. Shit, was it… _sobbing?_

There were a dozen or so of those fake electronic candles placed around the structure, dimly lighting the interior. The effect was of some cheap touristy catacomb, or a reliquary in some neglected little church, and it smelled like a musty old crypt inside.

The ghost was real, all right. It looked at me and appeared to wail. Soundless…like it was separated by some invisible barrier. Trapped.

I whirled around and stalked back to Gorin, leaving Skitch frozen where he was. Anger bubbled up inside me, hotter with each step I took back to the edge of the clearing. I wasn’t scared anymore. I wanted to shove Gorin to the ground and kick him in the ribs.

“You fucking asshole—you put all that shit in there?” I demanded, trying to get in his face despite our considerable height difference.

He just cocked his doughy-looking head and looked at me like I was speaking Wookiee. I continued, “He’s stuck, Gorin. Those bones in there all need to be buried. Why the fuck’d you leave them laying around like that?”

_He’s my friend. I talk to him. He doesn’t want to go._

“Bantha shit!”

_He spends every night looking for someone. He won’t rest till he’s found them. I help him._

“Whoever it is, they’re long gone, Gorin. Like he should be.” I glared at him. “And you say we should have some respect. That guy isn’t anything of ‘yours’ and this is just selfish and cruel.”

_How do you know so much about it?_

“Because where I’m from we’re close to our dead and know how to treat them. And this isn’t the way.”

“What, are you an Imp-lover or something?” Duster wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “The only good Imp is a dead Imp, so who cares what happens to ‘em after that.”

“You guys are a bunch of goons,” I said, and for the first time, my uniform felt like it didn’t fit right. “You all make me sick.”

Duster stood up and made like he was going to punch me. "Those assholes killed a fucking planet, and you feel bad for that piece of shit? Fuck you, Scout...just fuck you, you dumb bitch."

 _Watch is over, guys, it’s time to head back. Come on, Skitch, let’s go._ Gorin pointed south. _You take point, Scout._

So I did. I led us back in silence, except for the crunch of twigs under our boots and the rustlings in the trees.

I watched Gorin duck into his tent without even a single look my way, and the other two headed to the latrines. I went to one of the sapper sheds and got a shovel. Then I walked north.

And a few hours later that night, the cries of the dead stopped in one small part of the Endor forest.


End file.
